Could it be 1929 again?

What they think - COMMENTARY

October 7, 2008|By Robert Samuelson, Washington Post Writers Group and robert J. Samuelson, Washington Post Writers Group

WASHINGTON -- Watching the slipping economy and Congress' epic debate over the unprecedented $700 billion financial bailout, it is impossible not to wonder whether this is 1929 all over again. Even sophisticated observers invoke the comparison.

Martin Wolf, the chief economics commentator for The Financial Times, began a recent column: "It is just over three score years and ten since the [end of the] Great Depression." What's frightening is not any one event but the prospect that things are slipping out of control. Panic -- political as well as economic -- is the enemy.

There are parallels between then and now, but there are also big differences. Now as then, Americans borrowed heavily before the crisis -- in the 1920s for cars, radios and appliances; in the past decade, for homes or against inflated home values.

Now as then, the crisis caught people by surprise and is global in scope. But unlike then, the federal government is a huge part of the economy (20 percent versus 3 percent in 1929) and its spending --for Social Security, defense, roads -- provides greater stabilization. Unlike then, government officials have moved quickly, if clumsily, to contain the crisis.

Wrenching but not a tragedy

We need to remind ourselves that economic slumps -- though wrenching and disillusioning for millions -- rarely become national tragedies. Since the late 1940s, the United States has had 10 recessions. On average, they've lasted 10 months and involved peak monthly unemployment of 7.6 percent; the worst (those of 1973-75 and 1981-82) both lasted 16 months and had peak unemployment of 9.0 percent and 10.8 percent, respectively. We are almost certainly in a recession now; but joblessness, 6.1 percent in September, would have to rise spectacularly to match post-World War II highs.

The stock market tells a similar story. There have been 10 previous postwar bear markets, defined as declines of at least 20 percent in the Standard & Poor's 500 index. The average decline was 31.5 percent; those of 1973-74 and 2000-02 were nearly 50 percent. By contrast, the S&P's low point so far (Friday) was 30 percent below the peak reached in October 2007.

The Great Depression that followed the stock market's collapse in October 1929 was a different beast. By the low point in July 1932, stocks had dropped almost 90 percent from their peak. The accompanying devastation -- bankruptcies, foreclosures, bread lines -- lasted a decade. Even in 1940, unemployment was almost 15 percent. Unlike postwar recessions, the Depression submitted neither to self-correcting market mechanisms or government policies. Why?

Capitalism's inherent instabilities were blamed -- fairly, up to a point. Over-borrowing, over-investment and speculation chronically govern business cycles. But the real culprit in causing the Depression's depth and duration was the Federal Reserve. It unwittingly transformed an ordinary, if harsh, recession into a calamity by permitting a banking collapse and a disastrous drop in the money supply.

Then and now

From 1929 to 1933, two-fifths of the nation's banks failed; depositor runs were endemic; the money supply (basically, cash plus bank deposits) declined by more than a third. People lost bank accounts; credit for companies and consumers shriveled. Economic retrenchment fed on itself and overwhelmed the normal mechanisms of recovery. These channels included: surplus inventories being sold, so companies could reorder; strong firms expanding as weak competitors disappeared; high debts being repaid so borrowers could resume normal spending.

What's occurring now is a frantic effort to prevent a modern financial disintegration that deepens the economic downturn. It's said that the $700 billion bailout will rescue banks and other financial institutions by having the Treasury buy their suspect mortgage-backed securities. In reality, the Treasury is also bailing out the Fed, which has already -- through various actions -- lent financial institutions roughly $1 trillion against myriad securities. The increase in federal deposit insurance from $100,000 to $250,000 aims to discourage panicky bank withdrawals. In Europe, governments have taken similar steps; last week, Ireland guaranteed its banks' deposits.

The cause of the Fed's timidity in the 1930s remains a matter of dispute. Some scholars suggest a futile defense of the gold standard; others blame the flawed "real bills" doctrine that limited Fed lending to besieged banks. Either way, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, a scholar of the Depression, understands the error. The Fed's lending and the bailout aim to avoid a ruinous credit contraction.

The economy will get worse. The housing glut endures. Cautious consumers have curbed spending. Banks and other financial institutions will suffer more losses. But these are all normal symptoms of recession. Our real vulnerability is a highly complex and global financial system that might resist rescue and revival. The Great Depression resulted from the mix of a weak economy and perverse government policies. If we can avoid a comparable blunder, the great drama of these recent weeks may prove blessedly misleading.